


Thoughts Within His Head

by RiotKid



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, Based on a Tumblr Post, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt, failed suicide attempt, it doesnt get graphic but he does try to kill himself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4010629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiotKid/pseuds/RiotKid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The first time he tries, he’s thirteen.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>aka i stared at tony stark for a really long time, had a major downer, and wrote some fanfic.</p><p>Title is, of course, from Iron Man by Black Sabbath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i have no patience when it comes 2 waiting to post things when they're complete

**Author's Note:**

> heres the post btw: http://fairy-trash.tumblr.com/post/111254023995/suriella-john-watson-is-sherlocked-starkbannr
> 
> It really bothers me when people reduce Tony Stark to "egocentric playboy smart guy" because our mental illnesses manifest in very similar ways. also, i used to hate him because he had ZERO DEPTH and this fixes that.
> 
> he will, eventually, get a happy ending. im not about to slap some depressing shit on the internet and walk away.
> 
> tony stark is going to survive this and so are we. you're fuckin badass.
> 
> HERE WE GO try not to cry
> 
> ps shout out to morgo for knowing shit about cocoaine. the only straight i am is straight edge. (and straight up gay)

The first time he tries, he’s thirteen. His father is never home, and he can’t go anywhere without dozens of flashing cameras trailing after him. None of the kids at school are interested in him, not after what they’ve heard about his dad. Lately, the walls all seem to close in on him and every mirror whispers exactly what he can’t stand to hear. 

He was never one for theatricality, not when he was young, so when the shadows refuse to stop tracing ghostly fingers down his spine, he locks himself in the bathroom and picks the blades from his razor. Or, he tries to, at least. He nicks his finger halfway through getting the first blade out, and ends up crying in a ball on the cold granite floor.

When Nancy, his nanny, finds him, she doesn’t say anything, just gathers him close and leads him to his room. When he wakes up the next morning, his favorite cookies are warm on the counter, and anything even slightly dangerous has been hidden.

Nancy never mentions it, but he can feel the worry radiating from her, and throws himself into his schoolwork.

His father never finds out.

\- ҉ -

He starts homeschooling himself, stops leaving the house. His father doesn’t notice, of course.  
Nancy dies the December after he turns fourteen, leaving him even less of a reason to go anywhere. Eventually, the press stop speculating on why he refuses to exit the grounds.

He spends two years barely sleeping, building device after device, and learning everything he can get his hands on. The sleepless weeks pay off, and the night he gets the letter from MIT, he sleeps better than he has in years.

\- ҉ -

Most mornings are okay. They’ll never be great; all those seven am classes and four am bedtimes. MIT has been treating him pretty well, all things considered.

Some mornings, though, some mornings he wakes up like a wind up doll left to rust. These mornings, he doesn’t know how he gets out of bed. His joints click like the mechanics he spends every waking hour working on, but work hardly as well. He tries telling himself that his circuits are scrambled, that one day he’ll build a body that isn’t so damn worn out, one day he’ll feel better, he’ll be better, one day, one day, one day. The words circle his head, pounding a counter beat to the click in his chest.

One day, one day, one day. 

One day, he finally grows sick of the relentless beat of his heart, no, his generator, the constant wheeze of the bellows encaged in his ribs, and the sickening feeling of his auditory and optical sensory systems converting input to computable data. The gears of his joints need to be oiled and he needs to recharge.

So he does the only thing he can think to do. He tosses back a handful of sleeping pills, and washes them away with vodka. The alcohol almost burns on the way down. Almost.

\- ҉ -

He wakes up in a sterile, white room. There are ~~nurses~~ mechanics everywhere, and ~~doctors~~ engineers conversing quietly. He closes his eyes, lets his head sink back into the pillow, and tells himself that they’ll fix him.

How hard can it be to call a pile of shards a mosaic?

\- ҉ -

He gets out a week later, with a shiny new diagnosis and matching prescription. He doesn’t expect the little white capsules to do much, not with the way they make his stomach twist and turn, but he takes them anyway.

Looking at recent events, he decides he can’t effectively care for himself, but if he had to hire a caretaker, his father would kill him. The idea is tempting, but the lecture he’d have to endure first is not, so he scraps everything he’s working on and starts a new project. An AI system.

When his RA, James, comes to visit him the day after his release, he’s startled to find the dorm room walls swallowed by cables and circuit boards.

His face is lined with too much worry for someone his age, and he seems to gain ten years of weariness in the time it takes him to ask, “Tony, what is all this?”

Tony’s hands shake with the panicked blur of too much caffeine and too little sleep. If he sleeps, the nightmares will come back, he knows it.

He forces a (hopefully) laid back smile and leans back on his desk, responding, “a project for robotics. It’ll be out of here soon and it won’t scratch up the floors, promise.”

James picks up one of the wayward chunks of machinery that litter the floor. Turning it over in his hand, he grimaces. “Yeah, Tone, but what is it?”

Tony’s mouth opens and closes a few times before he manages to come up with, “Just A Rather Very Intelligent System.” He holds his breath, waiting for James to call his bluff, but the man remains silent.

Setting down the piece of metal, James clasps Tony’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, alright, Stark?”

Trying to avoid his piercing brown eyes is useless, so Tony sighs and tells him the closest thing to the truth he can. “I’m trying, James.”

James shoves at his shoulder lightly. “Man, I told you, you sound like my mom when you call me James. Makes me think I’m in trouble or something. Just call me Rhodey.”

Tony smiles, a real, genuine one this time, only slightly strained around the edges. “You’re a good man, James Rhodes.”

Waving behind him as he leaves, Rhodey calls back, “not so bad yourself, Stark.”

\- ҉ -

The second Rhodey steps out the door, Tony sags against the wall. Against the tangled mass of wires. The nights he sleeps, he wakes up in a cold sweat, still dreaming that the wires are wrapped tight around his throat. Some mornings he even remembers how to breathe.

Tony knows he can’t keep this in his dorm much longer. The circuits require too much electricity and condensing the wiring to a room this small is making everything overheat.

He buys a house that night, one that clings to the edge of a cliff he knows he’ll never scrape together the confidence to step off. 

Within the week he’s moved in. He tears through the walls, one by one by one, installing his new system. His own special kind of security.

\- ҉ -

The first time he flicks the switch, he feels a rush. A rush of what, he doesn’t know, but it’s damn near euphoric for the nanosecond it lasts.

The lights flicker, remain on, and with them, a new voice, new presence.

“JARVIS, Mark 3, online and functional, sir.”

And Tony smiles.

\- ҉ -

The idea is simple, really. JARVIS exists to keep him alive. JARVIS reminds him to eat, shower, sometimes even sleep.

He gets restless. There is an itch under his skin that not even upgrades and programming can fix. So he disappears. Goes out to one of those parties, the ones rich boys like him are supposed to attend.

He meets a girl. Her name is Iya and the white powder she carries stands out like stardust against the obsidian of her skin. It looks like sugar, but tastes hardly anything like it. The high, however, is incomparable. The bitterness dissolves on his tongue, taking his worries with it. 

\- ҉ -

The third time he tries, he's halfway through pressing down the plunger on the second syringe before he realizes what he's doing. He laughs, a little hysterically. Honestly, the movies make this all look so much easier than it is. He jams the next needle into the meat of his ever-thinning forearm and lets his eyes slip shut. Maybe this time he won't wake up.

\- ҉ -

He does, of course. This time to his father, fuming next to his hospital bed.

Howard Stark is, to put it simply, the most terrifying man Tony has ever known. His work in the second world war terminated any remaining leniency in his being, and had he ever been home during Tony's childhood, the boy would've been raised a soldier from the moment he could crawl.

Of course, he hadn’t been, and the only times Tony ever saw his father, was when he’d fucked up so bad that his nanny hadn’t been able to discipline him.

This, Tony muses, probably qualifies as one of those times.

The ensuing shouting match is the same as it always is.

“What made you think this was a good idea?” Howard Stark is already flaming red with anger by the time he opens his mouth.

“I dunno, Howie. What made you think barebacking it twenty years ago was a good idea?” Tony drawls in response.

“I didn’t raise you to be money-burning junkie scum, Anthony. Do you have any idea what this could do to the corporation?”

Tony shoves himself upright, swaying from the movement. “Last I remember, you didn’t raise me at all, _dad_.”

His father gapes at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

“Now, I think it’s best for all involved if you get the fuck out of my hospital room and my life. I’ve survived twenty years without your help, I think I can manage until you fucking die.” All Tony can see is red; whether it's the color of his father's face or the flames of the bridges he's burning, Tony isn't quite sure.

Howard Stark turns on his heel and leaves. When Tony gets home from the hospital, he will find an email informing him that he’s been cut off from his family’s finances. When he reads it, he’ll laugh, but right now, he collapses back against his pillows, and slips under again.


	2. Scared Straight, Sorry, Bisexual

When his feisty, red headed assistant (Poppy? Pepper? Something like that) tells him that his parents have passed away, Tony laughs. He laughs loud and raucous. She leaves in a rush after that, leaving Tony to appreciate the delicious view her retreating form provides.

As his laughter fades to a quiet smirk, Tony pours himself a drink. He reclines in his desk chair, lazy gaze settling on the swirling amber.

He lifts the glass in a toast, tossing it back in one swallow.

Tony raises his eyes towards the sky, as if Howard Stark would’ve made it to heaven.

_Goodbye and good fucking riddance, dad._

\- ҉ -

The next three years pass in an uneventful blur of drugs, alcohol, women, and war. Pepper regularly reports the body counts attributed to Stark Industries, to no avail. Tony throws his efforts into being bigger, badder, _better_ than his dad. His dad helped equip a supersoldier. Big deal. Tony will create weapons so powerful that soldiers will be obsolete, a thing of the past.

He succeeds, too. Stark Industries manages to cut American fatalities in half, each launch system fancier and more accurate than the last.

Tony never sleeps alone. Whether it began intentionally or not, he doesn’t know, but he’s thankful all the same. Without another body pressed close to his, his mind slips into nightmares. He dreams about being caught on the other end of one of his missiles, about the people he’s killed coming for him.

If he doesn’t have someone to sleep with, he doesn’t sleep at all.

\- ҉ -

“Mr. Stark, what are you doing?”

Tony lets his head flop to the side until he’s looking dead at his assistant. He waves his hand vaguely, sloshing the contents of the loosely-clasped glass he holds.  
“I’m drinkin’,” He slurs. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Kneeling next to his desk to tug the tumbler from his hand, she sighs. “It’s five o’clock here. In the morning, sir. I’ll cancel your meetings for the day, but you have to sleep, alright?”

“Not alone,” he mumbles. “Can’t sleep alone.”

“You’re going to have to, sir.” Her tone is that of someone who has had this argument too many times, but she leaves no room for argument as she leads him up the stairs and down the hallway.

As she’s pulling the covers over him, Tony catches her wrist. “Please?” His voice cracks on the word.

She sighs, but toes off her heels and lies down next to him. Softly carding her fingers through his hair, she whispers, “Get some sleep.”

And for the first night in weeks, he does.

\- ҉ -

When Tony wakes up that afternoon, his assistant has disappeared. He ponders the significance of that for a second, before shrugging it off on his way to the bathroom.

“JARVIS, what’s on my schedule today?” he asks, voice muffled by the vigorous towel-drying he’s giving his hair.

“Nothing, sir,” JARVIS responds, in his neat, clipped accent. “Ms. Potts wanted me to inform you that the kitchens have been restocked and you are required to eat at least two meals a day. Apparently, she doesn’t think you can do it on your own, not that I disagree of course--”

He’s cut off by Tony patting the nearest wall sharply. “That’s what I’ve got you for, big guy.”

“With all due respect, sir, I am in no way a sufficient bandage for your deteriorating mental state.”

“That’s the great thing about rock bottom, JARVIS!” Tony announces cheerfully, pulling on a fresh shirt on his way down the stairs. “Once you hit it, you can’t keep falling!”

Behind him- or possibly all around him, depending how you see it- JARVIS sighs.

\- ҉ -

Unfortunately for all involved, Tony Stark doesn’t hit rock bottom until Iraq. Until all his nightmares happen at once and he stares dead at his own missile as it explodes.

When he wakes up in the cave, kept barely alive by a car battery, he can’t breathe. He spends nearly an hour lying on his side hyperventilating before the other man notices him.

When he finally wraps his head around the situation, he can't fathom the audacity of his kidnappers. This simply does not happen to Tony Stark. When he dies, it'll be on his own terms, riding a wave- no, tsunami- of euphoria so huge he won't know when his own heart stops. He sure as hell won't die in a grimy cave, surrounded by the lowest quality tech he's seen since before the internet happened.

So he begins to plan. He's nothing if not one stubborn son of a bitch, and a damn smart one, at that, if he does say so himself.

He doesn't sleep for the two weeks it takes to build the arc reactor, and later, the suit. It's clunky and heavy, and he feels like he's being roasted alive, but once he gets out, he still _is_.

When he sees the helicopter, breath hits his lungs for the first time since the door burst in and a storm of bullets crashed into his chest.

When Rhodey stumbles to a stop next to him, Tony cries. Or he would, if he wasn't as hydrated as a piece of jerky.

When he exits the plane and is greeted by Pepper's enthusiastic embrace, he is so incredibly glad to be alive, he hardly remembers why he ever wanted to die.

He wonders, briefly, if this is what being scared straight feels like.

\- ҉ -

**Author's Note:**

> added abt 240 words to the end of this chapter and fixed the centering.
> 
> html is cordially invited to _fight my ass._


End file.
